I purchased the Viewsonic PS790 because I knew I wanted a 19" monitor, but I truly needed the short depth feature. My computer desk at home barely fit my 14" monitor from 1993. Measuring some new 17" monitors, I realized that anything bigger would probably not fit comfortably where I wanted it too. I don't want to have such a large monitor, and then also have it sticking over my keyboard. Fortunately I also got to see this monitor, and was told that its specialty was that it was designed to be shallow.

It only cost me (in August of 1998) an extra $50 more to get this rather than the comparable Viewsonic that had a normal depth. The PS-790 is approximately 3 3/4" shallower, which really makes a difference for my desk, and most people's general office space as well. In fairness however, I should say that today most 19" monitors are almost exactly as deep as this one. Some 21" monitors aren't much more than 2-3" deeper than the PS-790.

I do think this is one of the most reliable monitors I've ever owned. In all these years, my monitor has been on for at least 12 hours per day, and is showing no signs of anything being wrong. The picture has not dimmed, nor have I seen any other visual oddities with it, other than what it shipped with, that is.

The front panel has a toggle on-off button, with a separate green power light next to it. The buttons are Viewsonic's commonly seen two buttons (marked 1 & 2) and two arrow buttons to cycle through the various features. Contrast, Brightness, Size & Position, Geometry, Tit, Viewmatch Color, Viewmeter, Degauss, Video Level, Moire Reduction, and On-screen language and position are the options. Nothing too special, but also featured is a Memory recall, that will let you save various settings if you move the monitor between two machines often. I don't need to change my settings for the two machines I have hooked up to it, but I could see where it could be very nice for someone who uses a KVM switch or commonly hooks a laptop up to it.

The monitor puts out only a little heat, and has a flat top for the first 4 inches which is fine for setting things on top of it. The stand is permanently attached and is necessary to use, and adds just under 3" to the height.

My picture is usually at 1152x864. With my older Matrox G400 card I normally used a refresh rate of 85 khz, and now with my newer Hercules Geforce MX I normally have it set to a refresh rate of 100 khz.

Now here is the big problem that these monitors are known to have. People demanding perfection should be warned that (with both cards) I have about a 1/16th" curvature at the top and bottom middle of the screen. It seems to be a little worse the higher the resolution I go to, but this could be an optical illusion. The on screen settings are excellent but none seem to fix this. However, this is hardly noticeable unless you are looking for it, and then only when working with things with grids like Excel.

Today the best monitor that replaces this one is Viewonics GS-790. The "P" with the monitor reviewed stands for "Professional", and the "G" stands for "Graphics". I don't think that monitor necessarily has a better picture than this one, but the visual arcing doesn't seem to be there either.

Specs:
0.25mm dot pitch
1,600 x 1,280 maximum resolution
18.0" diagonal viewable area
Dimensions: Physical 448mm (W) x 454mm (H) x 415mm (D)(17.6" x 17.9" x 16.3")



Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 599
Operating System: Windows